The consumption of online videos on websites offering an online video hosting, sharing and viewing service (for example “YouTube” (Registered Mark) or “Dailymotion” (Registered Mark) sites) is growing and is accompanied by a desire to share and exchange these videos between users. In addition, “second screen” type mobile applications, synchronized with video, are intensifying the experience through additional contents such as quizzes and polls. One case of use consists of an “extended virtual couch” which means that a user can invite others to get synchronized with the video and carry out exchanges via a chat or a “second screen” application (quizzes, competitions, games, etc.).
There is a known way of defining a shared space in which a content (for example a video), is played back, each participant linking up to this space to see the video. As a result, unless the transmission times are different, each participant sees the same instant of the video at the same point in time.
The drawback of this known approach that if one of the participants wishes to carry out an action on the content (such as seeing a passage again), then all the participants experience the effects of this action, and this is not always desirable.
Another drawback of this known approach of synchronized viewing of a content is that it necessitates the management of a shared space with a special protocol and a shared network, incompatible with the contents available on the Internet (for example “YouTube” (Registered Mark) or “Dailymotion” (Registered Mark), and a non-guaranteed transmission time.